The split second where I crossed a line I couldn’t uncross and realized I didn’t feel regret first.
I felt relief. That was the part that made me sick.
I didn’t kill him because I’m a hero. I killed him because my storm finally found a target it could justify. He’d put his hands on her and he’d made her eyes go hollow, he’d turned us into entertainment. Something in me snapped and said enough.
The wilderness swallowed sound the way water swallowed bodies. It made our footsteps softer, our breathing loud.
We crested a ridge and the trees thinned for a bit, a ripple of sun turning her hair almost blue-black.
She hesitated, one hand wrapped around her skinny wrist like it was the only thing keeping her anchored. We hadn’t talked about what happened. Not really. I think both of us knew it would break us open if we did.
“Think we’re getting closer to the river?” She cleared her throat, eyes darting to my hands before she looked away.
“Looks like it,” I said. It was all I could manage. There are only so many words after you kill a man.
She nodded, picking at the blood under her nails. Wasn’t even her blood, mostly. I caught the tremor in her shoulders; she shoved it down like she always did.
We kept walking.
The undergrowth was thick, grabbing at our legs. Branches cracked under my boots and every so often, a crow called, like it couldn’t wait to pick apart what was left of us.
“Do you think…” She trailed off, hesitated, like maybe it was better to say nothing. Then: “Do you think it’s colder now, or is that just me?”
I almost laughed. Of course she was cold. She’d lost weight since we first got locked in. Cheekbones cutting sharp, wrists all bone, skin nearly translucent with shock and starvation. The sun did nothing out here. It was always cold, always damp. But more than that, I knew the kind of cold she was talking about.
I grunted. “Probably both.”
She looked at me sidelong. I could feel her staring at the blood on my hands, the way it had dried in the cracks. She shivered. “My fingers are freezing.”
It just happened.
I reached out and took her hand. Her fingers were icy, trembling. I pressed them between mine, trying to rub some heat back in. For a second, neither of us breathed.
I could feel her pulse in her knuckles, the faint twitch of her heartbeat. She blinked at me, eyes huge and wild, and I thought about kissing her just to see what would happen.
Instead, I let go like I’d been burned.
She jerked her hand back, hiding it in her sleeve.
We stood there in the silence, surrounded by the hush of the woods, and I could feel the tension spiking between us.
“Sorry,” I muttered, though I wasn’t sure what for. Touching her, or stopping. Or wanting to do it again.
She exhaled, a faint, shaky laugh. “No, it’s… Thank you.”
We didn’t move for a long second. I studied the ground. My hands twitched, remembering the knife, remembering skin parting and bone giving way and the weird relief of being able to do something—anything—to fight back.
“I keep thinking it’s over,” she said softly. “But it doesn’t feel over.”
“Yeah.” My voice was rough. “I know what you mean.”
We started walking again. Every time her shoulder brushed mine, a jolt went down my spine, as if the violence of the escape had rewired me and now even something gentle, something as simple as warming her hand, hurt more than the wounds I carried.
Time spun out, unspooling between us. The trees got denser, the ground dipped and rose. Once, when I lost my balance, she caught my arm without thinking, steadying me. Her hand was so small I almost laughed. She let go quick, like she’d remembered herself too late.
The ghosts followed us. Him, the bastard I killed, the basement, the bulb, the smile. My father, watching from somewhere in the rot beneath the earth, probably laughing that his son turned out just like him.
But she was here, alive, and so was I. Maybe that was the only reason I could stand the blood, the ache, the memory.
